Author Archives: DomainNameWire

About DomainNameWire

Domain Name Wire is a blog that deals with the domain name sector. The blog covers a range of domain related topics ranging from issues concerning expiring domains, monetization, domain registries and registrars, ICANN, policy, law etc. The blog began in March, 2005, after Mr. Allemann had dropped out of meetings to become involved in domain portfolio company, iREIT. The project began as a hobby to keep him involved in the domaining business, and then became his full-time business.

Wed 24th December 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Merry Christmas! Win giveaway coffee from Coffee.club - Here’s something nice to put under the tree. Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah! I hope you’re enjoying a relaxing holiday with family and friends. You may have heard last month about .Club’s deal with Bill McClure for Coffee.club. The registry sold the domain name to McClure (who also runs Coffee.org) for $100,000 as part of its Startup.club program. With this program, McClure will pay the domain off over 10 years and .Club will provide marketing support. .Club ... read more ...
Tue 23rd December 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
NamesCon registrations tip 600 - Next month’s domain name conference in Las Vegas will be a big event. Registrations for next month’s NamesCon domain name conference have topped 600, conference founder Richard Lau informed Domain Name Wire. Last year at this time, 336 tickets had been sold and the conference ended up with 572. Assuming the conference gets the last minute surge of registrations that are common at domain conferences, NamesCon could set a record for attendance at a domain investor-organized ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
74% of new TLD registrations (SLD+TLD) not purebred in .com - Sounds like a fun experiment, however try to remember the IP location is only one of many factors that Google uses to produce any given results page. To truly see this for yourself, and see what Google displays for a “stranger”, you would also need to factor in the following: 1. WHO is searching. They can derive this from any active Gmail sessions you may have opened, or if you use Chrome, they know who you are, and what searches you’ve made from that login, even if you clear ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Interesting: A Domain of One’s Own during University of Mary Washington - Program helps students register their first domain name and create a web presence. When I started college in the mid-1990s, the web was really just getting off the ground. Websites contained lots of silly things, and most of us non-techies designed them using software like Frontpage or HotDog. Oh, and I had to dial-in to internet service. Email and webhosting were nascent. The university offered us an email address at the mail.utexas.edu domain name, and we could ... read more ...
Mon 22nd December 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Name Aftermarket with Joe Uddeme – DNWP Episode 012 - Domain name sales in 2014 and looking forward. How did new top level domain names affect .com domain name sales in 2014? What impact will they have in 2015? You might be surprised by the answer. Joe Uddeme, Director of Business Development for Domain Holdings, talks about trends the domain name brokerage saw in 2014. Uddeme will discuss how domain sales changed throughout the year as well, and how you can work with a domain broker like Domain Holdings. Also: .Club ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
My initial .Cards spam, that competence indeed be a good thing for new TLDs - I received some spam today that linked to a pretty good new TLD. Over the summer I received a spam email linking to a .club domain name. The spam didn’t really have anything to do with .club; the domain choice seemed random. The .Club registry acted quickly to take action against the domain name, which is rather unusual for a registry. Today I received the my spam linking to a new TLD that truly takes advantage of new TLDs, and this might actually be good for the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New TLDs this week: Two launch on Christmas Eve - I wonder how many dentists will be registering domain names on Christmas Eve? Two new top level domain names launch this week, both on Christmas Eve and both from Rightside. .Dentist and .Rehab exit the Early Access Program on Wednesday and revert to regular pricing. The .dentist domains appear to be priced a little bit higher than most Rightside domains. GoDaddy is quoting a regular price of $49.99 and a sale price of $34.99. 101Domain quotes a $37.99 price. Compare ... read more ...
Fri 19th December 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Will some-more contested TLDs get some-more registrations? - Probably, but quantifying it is difficult at this point. I commonly hear that the best is yet to come in terms of new to level domain name launches. The most heavily contested applications are just getting resolved, and these represent the best top level domain names. It makes sense to me. But will this reflect reality? Are the TLDs we’re seeing so far not representative of the results of future, heavily contested TLD launches? I tried to dig into the data a bit ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Last week’s Expired Domain Name Sales - After seeing English and Chinese jostling for king of the mountain week after week, it’s a real pleasure to see Spanish climb to that top spot, as if reminding us that it – not English – stands as the world’s 2nd most populous language (behind Mandarin). GoDaddy auctioned off the word Gustazo.com for $4.7k. If you’re wondering what it means, well, I’ve already given you a clue in that first sentence. “Gustazo” equals a special pleasure. In particular, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WIPO row denies UDRP on WUP.com - Complainant probably didn’t exist when domain name was registered. A World Intellectual Property Organization panel has denied a UDRP attempt on the three letter domain name WUP.com. The complaint was filed by Wengenroth Partner, an German SEO and online marketing firm. It appears the company didn’t even exist when the respondent register the domain name in 2008. The single member panel found that the complainant did not prove a lack of rights or legitimate interests, ... read more ...
Thu 18th December 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
A demeanour behind during November’s NameJet Sales - November for Namejet – as measured by domain auctions that closed above $2,000 – was a slow month. Just one month prior, 12 out of the 66 charted sales surpassed $10k, with the highest attaining $91.8k; but last month only 1 out of 61 sales climbed into the 5 digits. To be fair, the high end of the domain market is always the most erratic. Trends are mainly to be found in the low and mid-value ranges and over a longer period of time. Interestingly, activity ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Cuba domain names take off after yesterday’s announcement - It’s interesting to compare the surge in Cuba-related domain registrations following this announcement with the volume of domains purchased when a new TLD enters general availability. 1,500 newly registered .COM / .NET domains containing “Cuba” … That exceeds the total number of domains registered to date for dozens of keyword nTLDs! According to NameStat.org, these TLDs have accumulated only between 1,000 and 1,600 domains: .GENT, .PIZZA, .GIFTS, .FAIL, .ACTOR, .SURF, .CREDIT, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Union Bank loses cases opposite dispute websites - Former customer registered ten domain names to air grievances about the bank. Union Bank has lost three domain name arbitration cases involving an upset former customer. The bank filed three separate actions covering UnionBank.me, unionbancal.co, unionbank.cc, union-bank.co, mufgunionbankna.com, unionbancalcorp.com, unionbancal.net, unionbancal.org, unionbankna.com and unionbanks.net. The domain names were all registered by William Bookout. At one point, his company ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Club lifting some-more money, valued during $25.4 million - .Club to be valued at $25.4 million after investment. The .Club top level domain name registry is raising more funds, and the latest round will value the company at $25.4 million after the investment closes. .Club previously raised $7.5 million, with about $3.5 million of that in debt. The company is conducting two additional fundraising rounds, both of which are fully subscribed. The first is a raise from existing shareholders that will effectively convert the $3.5 ... read more ...
Wed 17th December 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Johnson & Johnson pays $3.1M for .Baby, CREA $3.4M for .MLS - .Baby and .MLS new TLDs awarded. Two new top level domain names contention sets were resolved at auction today. The auction with six participants ended with a lower price than the one with just two. Consumer products company Johnson Johnson won .Baby with a $3,088,888 bid. It beat out Google, Minds + Machines, Donuts, Radix and Famous Four in the auction. Johnson Johnson also owns the domain name Baby.com. Canadian Real Estate Association beat Afilias in the auction ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN hacked, section record complement among victims - Hackers phished ICANN employees to gain access to systems. ICANN revealed today that its systems were compromised by a phishing attack. The attack involved emails designed to look like they came from ICANN’s own domain name being sent to members of its staff. Email credentials of several ICANN staff members were obtained. It appears the biggest system to be accessed as a result of the security breach was The Centralized Zone Data System (CZDS). This system is a ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Could new TLDs have an SEO advantage in a future? - Only if it improves search results. Using a new top level domain name instead of a .com or other gTLD does not give you a benefit in Google search results. Ditto for using a .com instead of a new TLD. They’re basically the same. That’s what Google says. And it makes sense when you think about it. A lot of people that think new TLDs have an SEO advantage are thinking with their heart, not with their head. Logic dictates that Google would give a boost of some sorts ... read more ...
Tue 16th December 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
CompareNow.com buys Compare.com domain name - Auto insurance comparison site upgrades its domain name. Auto insurance comparison company CompareNow.com has purchased the domain name Compare.com, according to Whois records. CompareNow.com was founded by Andrew Rose, previously the chairman and CEO of Elephant Auto Insurance. If that name sounds familiar, it might be because the company unsuccessfully tried to get the domain name Elephant.com from Adam Dicker through a UDRP in 2005. It later purchased the domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
See all 152 heading apps filed by a Trademark King (at a cost of $50k!) - Guy spends nearly $50,000 on application fees to try to trademark terms such as Google.com, NCAA Final Four and Elvis.com. I’ve written a couple times about Trademark King Inc, an Indiana business that filed a lot of trademark applications matching mostly famous names and common terms. The company has filed 152 applications, according to a search on Trademark247. Most were filed around Thanksgiving, and many of them exactly match a celebrity name or famous brand ... read more ...
 
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Brown Shoe Co. sells Shoes.com business - Owners of SHOEme and OnlineShoes.com buy Shoes.com. Publicly traded Brown Shoe Co has sold its Shoes.com online business to online shoe-seller SHOEme. SHOEme operates Shoeme.ca/com and OnlineShoes.com. Hardy Capital acquired both of these companies earlier this year. In an interview with Business in Vancouver, SHOEme CEO Roger Hardy said “Predominantly, we’re acquiring the assets. That’s the URL, the customers and the history of the customers as well as the ... read more ...
Mon 15th December 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Lies, darned lies and new TLD statistics - Dig into statistics to understand how valuable they are. New top level domain name options have been out for less than a year, and everyone is clambering for data to make sense of the rollout. That includes me. I look at registration data from a number of sources, weekly sales information, usage data…basically, anything I can get my hands on. Yet it’s important to understand that data can be misleading, especially if you don’t dig into the details. A prime example ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Frank Schilling discusses new TLDs and .Com – DNW Podcast #11 - Legendary domain investor Frank Schilling explains where new TLDs fit into the domain market. Last week’s Domain Name Wire Podcast was the most popular yet. With this week’s guest, we might make that happen two weeks in a row. Frank Schilling comes on the show this week to discuss why he decided to shift his lifestyle from a relaxing one of managing his own domain name portfolio to starting a number of domain name services businesses. He also explains why he applied ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Best feign name used in a domain name scam. Ever. - I don’t think think this scammer meant to be so funny. By now, pretty much everyone has seen the Fake Trademark Protection domain name scam, sometimes called the Asian Domain Scam. Here’s how it works: A scammer, typically pretending to be an Asian domain name registrar, sends an email to the owner of a domain name and says that someone else is trying to register domain names using the same brand. The scammer says they’re reaching out as a courtesy. If the recipient ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New TLDs give no SEO advantage and .Geo domains don’t work how we competence think - Google reiterates its guidance on TLDs and search results, and also says it isn’t geotargeted .geo domains on their own. A month or two ago a couple reports came out suggesting that new top level domain names give some sort of inherent search engine advantage. I’ve gotten into the nasty habit (sarcasm) of actually reading beyond the headline of reports and studies, and I was unimpressed with the data (if you can call it that) in these reports. Matt Cutts previously ... read more ...
Fri 12th December 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Some people are successfully flipping new TLD registrations - Here are some cases where new TLD registrants flipped new domains for a nice return. Some people are striking oil with new TLDs.It’s easy to come out and say new TLDs are a waste of time for domain name investors and that you won’t make any money with them. You can point to high initial prices and registry premiums to suggest that domainers are being cut out of the action. The reality is that some people are making good money flipping new TLDs. I want to be careful ... read more ...